In the words of sixteenth-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, life during the later Middle Ages was “nasty, brutish, and short.” According to Getty Museum curators Kristen Collins and Bryan C. Keene, this view of the past was especially true if you were not a fully abled, white, wealthy, Christian, heterosexual, cisgender male.

The two have published and taught courses on race, ethnicity, and the global Middle Ages. Working with a collection of primarily Western European illuminated manuscripts, they seek to open up traditional narratives about the Middle Ages to reveal a diverse, multicultural, and often intolerant world. Collins and Keene are currently developing an exhibition of manuscripts that sets aside the popular, idealized view of the Middle Ages and takes an intersectional approach to religious prejudice, examining the twinning of antisemitism and Islamophobia and biases against the disabled, the poor, and those who did not fit within the heteronormative standards that governed medieval society.

The curators describe the exhibition as follows:

Medieval manuscripts preserve stories of faith, romance, history, and knowledge, but their texts and luxurious illuminations can reveal more sinister narratives as well. Often created for the privileged classes, such books nevertheless provide glimpses of the marginalized and powerless peoples and highlight their tenuous places in society. Attitudes toward women and gender non-conforming individuals, Jews and Muslims, the poor, and the foreign peoples beyond European borders can be discerned through caricature and polemical imagery, as well as by erasure and censorship.

The exhibition will run from January 30 to April 7, 2018.

Here are a few recommended resources and readings for further background on this topic from an academic and museum perspective:

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